Trip Report Thank Heaven for Little Girls.

A few years back my son and I took a trip out West and along the way spent a few estrogen free days in Disneyland. This year was the girl's turn, even if that wasn't part of our original plans.

Planning vacations as your children get older can be a difficult task. Demands from college, high-school, camps, activities, and even part time jobs end up leaving very few open spaces on the calendar. Lately it seems that mid July to mid August is our sweet spot for getting away and so it was again this year. Based on a great deal on a condo found by my wife Val, we came up with a somewhat last minute plan to visit Clearwater Beach Florida...and oh yeah, we decided to drive down from Pennsylvania. I also had an eye to sneak away to WDW for at least a day during our week stay.

My son Sterg had to bow out of the trip. He's starting college at Penn State this year and since he's on their swim team he needed to stay behind and train. See what I mean about other demand? Don't feel too bad for him however, he has had a few nice trips of his own over the last six months. It may have also saved his life as I'm sure having to deal with him for 18 hours in a car would have stirred some primal blood anger in me.

Without Sterg it would leave myself, my wife Val, my 21 year old daughter Alex (about to become a college senior) and my 13 year old daughter Toni. Not quite "little girls" anymore but as most Dads will attest to; they are always little girls. Anyone who has read my previous reports knows that Val is not the biggest Disney fan - but how could we be so close to WDW and not go? After much deliberations on the scale of the Yalta conference we hammered out an arrangement to make one day on our trip "Chris, Alex and Toni get to go to Walt Disney World" Day. Where there is a will...

The big day came - we departed on a Saturday at 3pm in the afternoon after loading up our trusty stead/Ford Explorer. Leaving Sterg home by himself for a week brought it's own set of issues but he was all smiles and willing to play photographer as we said our goodbyes...

At this point we had no idea what we were getting into...

Sterg's long arms came in handy here...

Alex and Toni settling in for a long voyage and adventure while Sterg makes sure we say our goodbyes to Prince our dog.

We were on our way to Florida!

 

[Tuvalu]

As the mom who was thanked earlier in your TR about not making my children go on "It's Tough To Be A Bug" after their initial traumatizing, let me add that my then 9-year-old son stood up shortly after the show started and bellowed, "GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!"

He and I are planning to visit AK next month. Now 27, I think the odds of my convincing him to try ITTBAB again are still a million to one!

 

[LisaBelle]

I was so excited to find your new TR! Disney should hire you to photograph the parks. The open lens photo was amazing! Can't wait for more.

 

[fractal]

This was the first time we visited DHS/MGM without the "Hat". I thought my daughters would have protested its removal but they didn't. The Theater now feels more important; if that makes any sense. Not only due to the view when you enter the Park but as you approach it seems more impressive. Alex and Toni felt the same. Maybe it was just us or maybe it was from the heat or some of the tlc they put into it but GMR made a nice impression. There was a line and it started outside on the right side of the theater ( was it always like this?). This gave me some interesting perspectives on the building.

I was overexposing my shots, with this one the worst. I brought down the exposure in lightroom which made my clouds look funny but it also brought out some neat detail in the theater.

The courtyard seemed more "happening" than before. Did they always have M&G there?

The line moved quickly and soon we were inside.

This was the first time I made the effort to photograph the theater lobby. It's chock full of neat details.

I very much enjoyed the new film in the queue line. Robert Osbourne does a great job here with his voice lending an air of authority and importance. I think it's better than the original.

I remember several times in the past being stuck in that theater for what seemed forever; easily watching the film clip half a dozen or more times. This time however we barely saw the entire clip. As we were instructed onto our row in the tram car I realized I had forgotten to request the Cowboy scene. Oh well, maybe we'll get lucky.

Lights, Camera, Action!

 

[fractal]

Last trip I used my 50mm 1.8 lens in this ride; this time I was using the 24mm 1.8. The wider view allowed me to enjoy the ride more as I was less focused (no pun intended) on setting up the shot. My positioning in the tram however was more challenging as I was in the middle of the row and had to shoot over or between heads.

No complaints from Toni so far, and Alex was all smiles.

What a glorious feelin'
I'm happy again

I'm dancing and singing...

in the rain

Toni perked up for Mary Poppins and actually started to join in with the singing.

She (and Alex) started to get a bit nervous when we entered the "seedy" part of town.

I felt that the lighting was darker but better in GMR; or maybe my eyesight is going.

 

[MinnieM123]

Broken record here, but I really do appreciate your pictures! I love the theater (both inside and outside), and yet in all my visits to DHS, I've missed many of the intricate details you managed to capture with your camera lens.

For one thing, I never took note of the three different "scenes" (with the yellow paint in the background) on the upper, outside columns, on the front of the building before. Yet, to put this into perspective, they are up very high from the ground, and I can understand how easily most people would miss those. That's why we need you to continue to get stuck in long lines; it creates all these fantastic opportunities for Fractal's, HIdden Treasures at WDW pictorial masterpiece!

 

[fractal]

Absolutely, positively, spectacular pictures--once AGAIN!! For all the times I've been in the TOT, it's amazing to me how many details I have still missed. Your photos capture so many fine elements, and it's pleasant to take my time here, and savor these wonderful details.

As for Toni, I completely understand her wanting to stretch out her childhood a bit more. I was also the "baby" of the family (youngest of 4 children) and it was a place of security and joy for me, receiving that extra attention.

Thanks @MinnieM123 ! There were details I didn't actually see until I pulled up the photos on the computer. That's Toni too!

I love the dust .. As were standing there I never thought the "dust" is added .. duh ! I just thought "overtime" but then you touch it and wa-lah it never moves ...

So do I!

A couple of unique suites in the ToT and HM would be booked solid a year out......no matter what 4-figure number they would charge per night.

No doubt!

As the mom who was thanked earlier in your TR about not making my children go on "It's Tough To Be A Bug" after their initial traumatizing, let me add that my then 9-year-old son stood up shortly after the show started and bellowed, "GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!"

He and I are planning to visit AK next month. Now 27, I think the odds of my convincing him to try ITTBAB again are still a million to one!

Ah, I'm starting to piece it together. That is funny about your son! Maybe taking them back will exorcize those demons.

I was so excited to find your new TR! Disney should hire you to photograph the parks. The open lens photo was amazing! Can't wait for more.

Thanks much @LisaBelle ! I think I would take that assignment.
I would love to spend a day at each park just to photograph.

Broken record here, but I really do appreciate your pictures! I love the theater (both inside and outside), and yet in all my visits to DHS, I've missed many of the intricate details you managed to capture with your camera lens.

For one thing, I never took note of the three different "scenes" (with the yellow paint in the background) on the upper, outside columns, on the front of the building before. Yet, to put this into perspective, they are up very high from the ground, and I can understand how easily most people would miss those. That's why we need you to continue to get stuck in long lines; it creates all these fantastic opportunities for Fractal's, HIdden Treasures at WDW pictorial masterpiece!

Thanks again @MinnieM123 ! Another thing I also didn't pay much attention to until seeing the photo! I do love photographing all the details.

 

[BJones82]

BTW totally stealing this idea for a must do shot for our upcoming wedding in WDW!! Thanks for the amazing pic lol!!

 

[fractal]

As much as I enjoyed Robert Osbourne in the queue line, I felt the narration during the ride was sometimes out of place, unnecessary or awkward ( "awk' as Alex would say) and would rather have the CM do all the narration. Specifically during the times when things went "off schedule" with the CM (such as the gangster or cowboy parts), Robert would "comment" on the happenings as if he were there. OK - we all know this is a canned narration - now we have to believe that he is somehow watching from above and observing what's going on? It certainly took away from the uncertainty created in those sequences when the CM goes into action.

Speaking of that - we did get the Cowboy!

This started to make Toni nervous, especially after I said/lied that I had never seen this happen before. Then this! - which made her start to shift positions in the tram more towards me.

Who is this guy?

"Ha,ha" I thought. "Not the boring little dark ride you thought it would be".

Although she eventually convinced herself that it was all staged, the Cowboy scene woke Toni up and put her on guard the rest of the ride.

Time for another little scare.

Continuing our tour -

Here was the part were Robert Osbourne commented on the foolishness of the Cowboy to try and get the gem. It's almost insulting to our intelligence. Without the canned narration you want to spontaneously clap for our CM hero. With the narration, it felt too "awk" and nobody clapped which diminished the fun of the ride.

What do you think Cheetah?

I didn't get Tarzan swinging but I did get a good shot of Jane.

Now to one of my all-time favorites films...

"of all the gin joints in all the towns in the World she had to come walk into mine..."

 

[fractal]

A recap of GMR cannot be complete with some Wizard of Oz luv.

Not a bad shot of the witch with the 24mm...

but I felt I did better with her using the 50mm 1.8 last trip...

then we followed the yellow brick road. Keep it moving up ahead.

The end film has some changes and additions (Robert Osbourne) but frankly I couldn't tell you what was left out. I was happy with it and it got my Hollywood juices flowing.

Alex was happy she got her GMR fix in and Toni was surprisingly satisfied. Onto our next adventure!

These palms provides some much need shade.

Sci-Fi dine in! Not this time.

We made our way to Star Tours to shockingly discover a wait time of 45mins! Based on our waits at ToT and RRRC I was expecting the fast moving ST to be 15-20mins tops. Perhaps the Force has indeed Awakened.

We skipped a jump to hyperspace and instead went to see the newly refurbished Muppet Vision.

We walked in towards the end of the pre-show. I enjoyed Muppet-Vision last trip but the film was showing it's age and a number of the effects did not work.

I'm not sure if the film was digitized or just restored but it looked great! As near as I could tell all the effects worked and the girls and I enjoyed it immensely. The theater was jam packed which made it even more fun with all the crowd reactions. Lots of love for MV this time around!

Some fountain shots afterwards:

I so much wanted to jump in that water!

We decided at this point to start making our way out of the park. It was now mid-afternoon and we had much more to do.

 

[fractal]

Some Indy details;

Alex and Toni tagged teamed me and did their best "Pleeeeasssse Dad" routine to convince me to spend nearly a dozen shekels on Mickey ice-cream bars ( I had to have one as well). Luckily for me I eat fast enough to avoid having a gooey chocolaty mess drip down on me. Toni and Alex weren't as lucky. As a good father should, I did offer to help them finish their bars but to no avail.

I tried something different in processing this photo to give more of a retro look. Would have been better without the back of the girl's head in it. What do you think?

Back from once we came.

I stopped and felt compelled to take more photos. I always liked this shop window.

I tried another shot of the same scene in black and white and it turned out to be one of my favorite shots of the trip. I show people this picture and they say "you took this in a Disney park?"

"Dad, can you please stop taking pictures!"

"NO"

"Hey look! there is officer William Club! we have to get a shot of you two with him."

"Dad, pleeeeasssee no..."

This time I got my way.

More shots "on the run".

See you later Hollywood Studios! Probably won't be called that next time we're back.

Everyone was smiles as we enjoyed the quick breeze on our way to the car.

 

[Bob]

I tried something different in processing this photo to give more of a retro look. Would have been better without the back of the girl's head in it. What do you think?

Very cool!! Gives the photograph the feel of actually being a painting.

 

[MinnieM123]

Yea! More great pix!! The two pictures of the witch in the Oz scene, were absolutely amazing.

My other favorite picture was the black and white version of the outdoor, shop window scene. What a wonderful idea to flip that from color, over to black and white. (Note: when my eldest brother was in high school and college, he took lots of pictures, and used to do his own film developing. This was all prior to digital, of course. Anyway, he used to tell me that black and white had a charm all its own, and he preferred black and white for most of his pictures. )

 

[fractal]

BTW totally stealing this idea for a must do shot for our upcoming wedding in WDW!! Thanks for the amazing pic lol!!

Steal away and congratulations!

Very cool!! Gives the photograph the feel of actually being a painting.

thanks!

Yea! More great pix!! The two pictures of the witch in the Oz scene, were absolutely amazing.

My other favorite picture was the black and white version of the outdoor, shop window scene. What a wonderful idea to flip that from color, over to black and white. (Note: when my eldest brother was in high school and college, he took lots of pictures, and used to do his own film developing. This was all prior to digital, of course. Anyway, he used to tell me that black and white had a charm all its own, and he preferred black and white for most of his pictures. )

Some say 50mm is "too tight" in dark rides for a cropped sensor camera but I found that it lets you reveal more detail. Yes - Black & White can be amazing, especially in high contrast photos.

thanks for following along!

 

[fractal]

The first thing I did when I opened up the car was find the button down white cotton shirt I brought along. I took off my Fractal t-shirt and put on the much more comfortable button down. Alex mentioned that she wasn't feeling all that well - I had brought along a cooler with water bottles and also some motrin and tums. The combination seemed to set her straight.

The drive to EPCOT was literally minutes away. How very nice! It had me thinking about renting a car on our next trip.

The tram was waiting for us and efficiently transported us to the front entrance.

What a sight for sore eyes!

Since photopass was hogging up the direct view, I went with an angle shot.

and then another selfie - my chin and nose is really not this big. Now doesn't that shirt look much more comfortable?

As we walked towards SSE the girls had to take a "potty" break which gave me a few minutes of complaint-free photography.

Back on the move -

Found a nice spot for a mirror shots. See how small my mirrorless camera is? Phenomenal DSLR sized sensor in an itty bitty camera body. I really appreciated the small size and weight on this hot day of running around - even with another 3 lenses.

Alex wanted to do SSE - Toni complained a bit but the proximity and promise of a dark air conditioned ride won over.

"What is this ride?" Toni questioned.

I was realizing that the last time she went on SSE she was a bit younger and had forgotten many of those slower rides.

As we started the accent though she began to remember.

"Oh, this is the ride where you put in where you want to live and they make a video out of it"

Strange to me that was what she recalled.

In the meantime I was scrambling in the back seat, taking off the wide angle lens for the "secret weapon" dark ride Minolta 50mm 1.4 + focal reducer lens. SSE should be a good test for it; hopefully my manual focusing skill won't let me down again.

 

[fractal]

I love SSE, always have. Photographing the Audio-Animatronics in SSE make it even more enjoyable for me. It's a challenge to get good shots of the history of communication. One has to deal with the lighting, which is terrific for setting the mood but cameras need light to actually take a picture and the light is dim in SSE. To get more light in your camera you can leave your shutter open longer but that can causes blurry pictures even if you and your subject are not moving. In this case, both are moving so a fast shutter speed is actually needed.

Another way to add more light is to use a larger aperture - which is where the secret weapon lens of an f/0.95 aperture comes in handy. A large sensored camera is also important, which is why cell phones and most point & shoots struggle in these situations. Cranking up the ISO will also assist but as the ISO goes higher the quality of the picture goes down. The challenge therefore is to get the correct balance between these variables; shutter speed, aperture and ISO assuming you have a credible camera. Good technique is also critical in this environment. Shooting one-handed while checking text messages with the other hand is not good technique. This challenge is what makes it fun; at least for me.

Caveman was up first. I've never gotten a decent shot of him.
Until now.

As I got to ancient Egypt I really felt that the lighting was even dimmer than I remember. "This is not fair" I thought. But maybe it was just me being more in tuned to it than the average person.

Man are those Greeks smart or what?

See ya later, Soc.

On to Rome.

and yes, you could smell it burning!

 

[fractal]

More history lessons.

Next - limber Renaissance Man with the great hair.

More Renaissance luv...

and a quick jump to the Civil War.

The history buff inside of me just eats this up. Alex is a lot like me in many ways and felt the same way. Meanwhile Toni was trying to remember if there was a big drop coming next.

The focus peaking in my camera's viewfinder was crucial for manually focusing. It works by highlighting the objects in focus in yellow, then all I have to do is click the shutter when I get my subject glowing like a canary.

This guy reminds me of Oscar Goldman from the Six Million Dollar Man.

RIP Steve Jobs.

Our Spaceship Earth

Overall I was very happy with my results using the Minolta lens. I couldn't ask much more from a $50 investment. I would love to come back to WDW with the latest Sony mirrorless cameras that can almost see in the dark, but then maybe the challenge won't be as fun??

 

[disneypearl]

Really nice pictures in SSE! I love this ride so I'm glad to see them.

 

[MinnieM123]

Those were wonderful pictures of the inside of SSE; I was impressed that your photos came out so well with all the changes in lighting inside there, depending upon the scene. My favorite picture was actually outside of SSE. It was the walkway leading into SSE. Wow. What a picture! I'm not sure if you used one of your dandy wide angle lenses for that (the trees on the right and left look slightly tilted, so I'm just guessing here), but that picture was something to behold.

 

[Ella's Mommy]

We ALWAYS rent a car when traveling to Dis. It just makes park hopping so much easier. We also love to hit up the Disney outlet stores AWESOME pics of Epcot!!!

 

[sheriffwoody]

Great shots inside SSE! I've never even attempted it.